I wonder how many people, like Bai Qiquan, spent a sleepless night during the year-end holiday.

When Lu Ban woke up the next day and turned on his computer, the number of followers of his new account "Silent Project" had exceeded one million.

For a small UP like him whose fan base barely exceeds two million, this speed of increasing fans is simply incredible.

After washing up, Lu Ban ignored the two clouds of mist and read the comments under the Weibo post of the account.

[Thank you for the Silent Project, thank you for Lu Ban, I successfully spent a night without feeling sleepy. ]

[Is this a video I can watch for free? The special effects of the bugs are so realistic that they give me goosebumps]

[It's hard not to be moved. Lu Ban actually spent so much energy to make a free movie to scare people. Thank you so much. ]

[I was originally planning to watch "The Wailing", thinking that it was free, so I went straight to watch it. Now, I don't dare to watch "The Wailing", the box office is -1]

[Thanks to Lu Ban, I watched this with my girlfriend, and she still doesn’t dare to let go of my hand]

[It is said that The Wailing is even scarier than this? I am thinking about whether to refund my movie ticket for tomorrow. ]

[You should be thankful for Lu Ban's final kindness. If the Easter eggs he put in the movie were Christmas instead of Halloween, I'm afraid you would have to spend the most fearful Christmas.]

[Stop talking. I get PTSD when I hear these three words. I feel like they are going to become a trigger switch.]

[I think this short film is a level higher than the previous ones. In the previous movies and videos, the audience only felt that it was a story, but this short film made people think of the people around them, which was creepy]

[If someone around me suddenly said "Halloween" to me expressionlessly, I would probably be scared to the point of passing out.]

[Maybe I am a bug right now as I type this, but I just haven’t discovered it yet. ]

[Students above, please wake up! You who work so hard every day and move bricks 996 hours a day may be worse than a bug.]

[The bugs in the video are just to my taste, I can do it, no problem! ]

[Although XP varies from person to person, your XP is really weird! 】

[On behalf of the Insect Lovers Association, I strongly condemn Lu Ban for harming such cute insects. Don’t you know how well-behaved these insects are? ]

Various comments like these flooded the Weibo posts, with many people thanking Lu Ban for making him feel that the value of his life had been reflected.

The private messages on Weibo have been flooded with messages for a long time. Some people just come to express their own feelings and experiences, some people start to criticize without saying anything, there are also advertising guys who want to promote and increase their fans, and some people who are not sure whether they are genuine and want to cooperate.

According to the price list Lu Ban had seen before, he could get tens of millions of dollars in investment just with his current account. Of course, he was not short of money.

The first-day box office of "The Wailing" has exceeded five million in the eight hours so far. Combined with the data from the midnight premiere, it is estimated that the first-day box office will reach more than 40 million, while its screening volume is less than 3%.

This data means that his films have extremely high attendance rates, with almost all theaters being full.

Following this trend, theaters should gradually increase the number of screenings of "The Wailing", and then as word of mouth spreads, the single-day box office will soon surpass the first day, and may even reach a cumulative box office of 1 billion.

You should know that the previous box office record for horror and thriller films in China was a movie five or six years ago that told about supernatural events in a large family in an ancient house. It gathered many stars, but the final box office was barely 400 million. Since then, there have been horror films released every year, but the box office was not high. The good ones made over 100 million, and the bad ones only made tens of millions.

In fact, considering the development of the film market in recent years, the 1 billion box office of "The Wailing" is still a conservative estimate.

You know, when that movie was released, the box office of the Spring Festival period was less than 1 billion, but now the box office of the Spring Festival period is heading towards 5 billion.

Once Lu Ban gets this money, it will be a huge sum of money, at least enough for him to live comfortably for the rest of his life without having to work hard anymore.

However, Lu Ban soon received news from the theaters.

The cinema first congratulated "The Cry" on its achievement, and then informed Lu Ban that starting from the next day, Lu Ban's screening volume would be increased to about 6%.

“Why only 6 percent?”

Lu Ban found it a bit strange. If he were the cinema chain, and encountered a movie with such a good reputation and high attendance, he would have to arrange it quickly to make money.

Moreover, the duration of "The Wailing" is only more than 90 minutes, which is within the normal range, and theaters will not reduce the number of screenings because of its length.

It's just very strange.

Lu Ban asked some questions and finally got the answer.

The movies released around Christmas at the same time as his were a light romantic comedy starring many celebrities, and an idol romance drama starring a young actor in period costume.

Sandwiched between these films, Lu Ban's "The Cry" seems out of place.

He took a look and found that the costume idol movie had the highest box office, with more than 20% after five days of release, and another star-studded movie also had nearly 20%. These two movies accounted for most of the theaters' capacity.

In the middle are some films that are similar to "The Wailing", with screening rates all below 10%.

“Is it that amazing?”

Lu Ban searched the internet for this idol drama and saw that the actors in this movie were idols who came from a talent show. The rating of this movie has dropped below five points, and its reputation is very bad. The box office is getting lower and lower every day. It is hard to understand why it can still maintain such a high number of screenings.

He immediately called Song Yunyan's secretary Li Zijian to have a chat.

Jiangcheng Industry has also built commercial plazas in other cities and has its own cinema chains. Although their share is not large, at least for Lu Ban's sake, they should increase the screening schedule of "The Cry".

Honestly speaking, Lu Ban doesn’t care how much money “The Wailing” can make. He has already accomplished the small goal of this movie. However, now Lu Ban needs to establish the world view of A Quiet Place. Therefore, the higher the box office of “The Wailing” and the more people who have seen it, the greater the impact on his subsequent plans and the easier it will be to attract attention.

Therefore, we still have to strive for scheduling.

"That movie, don't you know, there might be crazy fans locking the theater."

It seems that Li Zijian has been paying more attention to the film and entertainment sector recently, and he speaks very clearly about it.

The purpose of locking the theater is to prevent the cinema from canceling the show due to no one buying movie tickets, so only one ticket is purchased. In this way, the cinema cannot directly cancel the movie, thus ensuring the screening rate.

Since movie reservations can now be booked for more than half a month in the future, fans have locked up theaters for more than ten days at a time, resulting in a high screening rate despite a sharp drop in box office sales.

Of course, some cinemas chose to apologize directly and refund tickets, but after all, it takes time to react and deal with the situation, so the screening schedule for this movie is still very high during this period.

"We need to find a way..."

Lu Ban didn’t quite understand this kind of business competition in reality. He felt that facing monsters from foreign lands was easier.

"How about starting with a midnight show, like we did at the film festival?"

"That's the only way. I'll discuss this with Mr. Song at our own cinema and we should be able to schedule more films."

Li Zijian answered, and at the end, he mentioned another sentence.

"By the way, your plan seems amazing. Can you do it by yourself?"

"Now that I think about it, it's true that I don't know how to use a website."

Lu Ban replied.

“…Is it just a problem with the website?”

Li Zijian was ashamed. Could he really handle the other parts in one go?

Even the donkey in the production team can’t do this, right?

"It's okay. If there's any problem, I'll definitely trouble you. Don't worry."

Lu Ban added another sentence.

"Then I thank you very much."

Li Zijian twitched his lips.

At noon, Lu Ban saw a push notification on his mobile phone that "The Wailing" had added a midnight show, which would be screened between noon and five in the morning.

“It’s very efficient.”

Lu Ban sighed.